The Executioners

Chapter Three

Sievers reported to Sam in his office at ten on Thursday morning. He sat in his very still way and did not change expression as he spoke in his flat, bored voice.

“I picked him up at six o’clock coming out of the rooming house. He walked to Nicholson’s bar three blocks down Market Street. He came out alone at seven-thirty and walked back and got his car and drove to Nicholson’s and double-parked and blew the horn and a woman came out and got in the car with him. A fat blonde with a loud laugh. He drove back to the rooming house and put the car in the back where he keeps it and they went in together and came back out about forty minutes later. They got in the car and I followed them. He started turning too many corners. I couldn’t tell if he’d made me or he was being cute or maybe they were just looking for a place to eat. I had to hang ’way back. Finally they headed out of town on Route 18. He turned onto a secondary road. No traffic. He bluffed me by slowing ’way down after he was around a bend. So I had to pass. When I was out of sight I turned off and cut the lights, but he didn’t come along. So that means he was cute. I came back fast, but he had too many choices of turns. So I went back to Nicholson’s. He goes there a lot, I found out. They know him only as Max. The woman is one of those Market Street characters. Bessie McGowan. Not quite a prostitute, but so close the difference doesn’t show. He brought her back at three in the morning to the rooming house. He was okay, but he nearly had to carry her in. I knocked off and went back at ten-thirty yesterday morning. He came out at a quarter of twelve, drove to a delicatessen and took a sack of food back to the room. At five o’clock he drove her to one of those beat-up apartment hotels on Jefferson Avenue and went in with her. They came out at seven and she’d changed outfits. They went back to Nicholson’s. He came out alone at nine and started walking. He headed down toward the lake front. He was having fun. He’s awake every minute. He’s cute and he’s good. He can see in all directions at once. And he can move. I lost him. I thought I’d lost him. Then he lit his damn cigar right next to me. I nearly jumped out of my shoes. He gave me a good look and grinned and said, ‘Nice night for it,’ and walked back to Nicholson’s. He took her to dinner at a steak house five miles out of town by the lake. They got back to the rooming house at three again. So I guess they’re still there. I goofed and I’ve got no apologies. What do you want next?”

“Should the agency put a different man on him?”

“I’m the best, Mr. Bowden. I’m not trying to kid you. He’d make the next one just as quick, or quicker.”

“I don’t quite understand. Does it make any special difference that he saw you and can recognize you? Can’t you keep an eye on him anyway?”

“I could set up a team to do it, but even then it might not work. Three men and three cars, and a second shift so you could cover him around the clock. But there’s too many ways he can give us the slip. Go in a movie and go out any exit. Go in a department store and go upstairs and come down another way and go out another door. Go out through the kitchen of any joint. Go play games in a hotel. There’s too many ways.”

“What do you suggest, Sievers?”

“Drop it. You’re wasting your money. He expected to be covered. So he was looking for it. He’ll keep on looking for it. And any time he wants to shake loose, he’ll figure out a way. This one is cool and smart.”

“You aren’t much help. You don’t seem to understand that this man wants to harm me. That’s why he came here. He may try to get at me through my family. What would you do?”

The slate eyes seemed to change color, turn lighter. “Change his mind.”

“How?”

“Don’t quote me. I’d make some contacts. Bounce him into the hospital a couple of times, he gets the point. Work him over with some bicycle chain.”

“But... maybe he isn’t planning anything.”

“This way you’re sure.”

“I’m sorry, Sievers. Maybe it’s a weakness in me, but I don’t think so. I can’t operate outside the law. The law is my business. I believe in due process.”

Sievers stood up. “It’s your money. A type like that is an animal. So you fight like an animal. Anyway, I would. If you change your mind, we can have a private talk. This wouldn’t be through the agency. You’ll waste money keeping me on his tail.”

He paused at the door and looked back, his hands on the knob. “You have to figure one angle on this. You’ve alerted the law. If he does anything, he sure as hell is going to be picked up. But then again, maybe he doesn’t give a damn.”

“What would that team cost?”

“Somewhere around two thousand a week.”

After Sievers was gone Sam tried to lose himself in his work, but his attention kept wandering back to Cady. As he drove home Thursday night, he decided there would be no point in telling Carol that Sievers was no longer on the job. It would be difficult to explain and would alarm her unnecessarily.

Carol called him at three o’clock on Friday afternoon. When he heard her tone of voice his hand clamped tightly on the phone. She was nearly incoherent.

“Carol, are the kids all right?”

“Yes, yes. They’re all right. It’s that... that fool dog.” Her voice broke. “Could you come home? Please.”

On his way out he stopped in Bill Stetch’s office and told him there was trouble at home. The dog had probably been run over, and he was leaving for the day.

He made good time on the way home. It was a gray day. Carol came walking quickly out to the barn, the kids trailing after her. Carol looked haggard and gray. Nancy was a pasty white, her eyes swollen and red. Jamie held a trembling mouth clamped tightly shut. Bucky stumbled along, fists in his eyes, bellowing in such a hoarse way that Sam knew he had been crying for a long time.

Carol turned around, her voice sharp, and said, “Nancy, you take the boys back in the house, please.”

“But I want to—”

“Please!” Carol seldom spoke so harshly to them.

They went back toward the house. Bucky was still roaring. Carol turned back to him and her eyes filled with tears. “God deliver me from another forty minutes like I had today.”

“What happened? Run over? Is she dead?”

“She’s dead. But she wasn’t run over. Dr. Lowney came right out. He was perfectly wonderful. We couldn’t get her in the MG to take her in. The timing was absolutely superb. I heard the school bus stop and then pull away, and then I heard Nancy screaming. I came running out like I was shot out of a gun. I found out later that when the bus was coming to a stop Jamie looked out the window and saw Marilyn in the front yard, gobbling something down. She came prancing over to meet the kids as she always does, and then she started to whine and run in circles and bite herself in the side. Then she went into a kind of convulsion. That’s what started Nancy screaming.” The tears ran down Carol’s face. “When I got there the dog was in agony. I’ve never seen anything so pitiful or frightening. And all three kids watching. I tried to get near her, but she snapped at me so viciously I didn’t dare touch her. I told the kids not to touch her and I ran in and phoned Dr. Lowney. I looked out the window and she was still having those spasms and the kids weren’t too close, so I phoned you. She was rolling and writhing and making the most awful screaming noise I ever heard a dog make. I didn’t want the kids to watch, but I couldn’t get them away. Then she began to run down, like a clock or a machine or something. Dr. Lowney arrived just before the end. She died about a minute later. So he took her in with him. That was about twenty minutes ago.”

“He said she was poisoned?”

“He said it looked like it.”

“Damn it to hell!” His eyes were stinging.

“It would have been bad enough just to see it, but to have the kids see it too! This is going to be a cheery household this weekend.”

“Can you handle the kids for a little while?”

“Where are you going? Oh, down to the vet’s?”

“Yes.”

“Please don’t be long.”

Dr. Lowney was a big placid man with white hair, bright-blue eyes and an easygoing manner. When Sam went into the waiting room Mrs. Lowney, behind the desk, bobbed her head at him and went into the back and came out immediately and said, “The doctor would like you to go right on back, Mr. Bowden. All the way back.”

A waiting woman with a toy black poodle on her lap gave Sam a concentrated glare. He walked back. Lowney stood at a work bench. Marilyn was on a stained wooden table in the middle of the small room. The life had gone out of her coat. She lay like a dull red rag, one white slit of eye showing.

Lowney turned from the bench. There was no greeting, no affability. “I haven’t got the best lab resources in the world, Sam, but I’m pretty sure it was strychnine, and a walloping big dose of it. It was administered in raw meat. Probably just cut a slit in a piece of meat and stuffed the crystals in.”

One of her ears was folded back. Sam unfolded it. “It makes me feel so mad I feel sick.”

Lowney stood on the other side of the table and they both looked down at the dead dog. “I don’t get much of this, thank God. I’m in this business purely and simply because I’ve been nuts about animals ever since I could crawl. I have the belief that poisoning an animal is a more vicious and callous thing than murdering a human. They can’t understand. It’s a dirty shame the kids saw it.”

“Maybe they were meant to see it.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean.”

“Sam, I wish you’d let me talk you into taking her to obedience school last year.”

“It seemed like too much trouble somehow.”

“Then she’d never have touched that meat.”

“We had her on a diet. She was an incorrigible beggar. And scared of her own shadow. But she was one hell of a wonderful dog. She had personality. Damn it all.”

“There isn’t much you can do about it, you know. Even if you could prove who did it, it’s just a fine, and not much of a one at that. I don’t suppose you want me to dispose of her.”

“No. I suppose I could take her back.”

“Why don’t you go back and decide where you want to bury her and get a big enough hole dug, and I’ll drop her by after I close up here at five. I’ll wrap her in something. No need for the kids to have to look at her again. She isn’t so pretty.”

“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“Trouble, hell. You go dig the hole.”

When Sam walked into the house Carol had managed to get Bucky quieted down. He was in the living room staring woodenly at television. His face was bloated and, at metronomic intervals, a strangled sob shook him like a massive hiccup. Carol was in the kitchen. He noted with instant approval that Marilyn’s dishes and rug had been put away out of sight.

“Where’s Nance and Jamie?”

“In their rooms. Did Dr. Lowney know what...”

“Strychnine.”

They were speaking in hushed voices. She turned into his arms and he held her. She spoke against the side of his throat. “I keep telling myself it was just a fool dog. But...”

“I know.”

She turned back toward the sink. “Who would do such a horrible thing, Sam?”

“It’s hard to say. Somebody with a twisted mind.”

“But it isn’t as if she was ranging around killing chickens or digging up flower beds. She never went off the place unless she was with the kids.”

“Some people just don’t like dogs.”

She turned around, wiping her hands on a dish towel, her expression grim and intent. “You’re never home when the school bus comes, Sam. Marilyn knew the sound it makes when it comes up the hill. And wherever she was, she’d start heading out for the end of the drive and be there waiting when it stopped. If somebody followed the bus in a car they’d know about that. And then the next time they could go ahead of the bus and throw that poisoned stuff out where she’d be sure to find it when she came to meet the bus.”

“It could have been just a coincidence.”

“I think you know better than that. I think you feel the same way I do. I’m not being hysterical. There’re dogs all along Milton Road. I’ve been trying to think of who doesn’t have one, and the only ones are the Willeseys. And they’re over a mile from here and they’ve got all those cats and they wouldn’t poison a dog anyway. And we’ve lived here seven years now, and I’ve never heard of such a thing happening. So, the first time it happens, why was it our dog?”

“Now, Carol...”

“Don’t you ‘now, Carol’ me. We’re both thinking the same thing and you know it. Where was that wonderfully efficient private eye?”

Sam sighed. “All right. He’s not on the job any more.”

“When did he stop?”

“Wednesday night.”

“And just why did he stop?”

He explained Sievers’ reasons to her. She listened intently, expressionlessly, mechanically continuing to dry her hands on the towel.

“And just when did you know all this?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“And you didn’t say a word last night. I was to go on thinking everything was just dandy. You had it all fixed. I’m not a child and I’m not a fool and I resent being... over-protected.”

“I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

“So now this Cady can roam around at will and poison our dog and work his way up to the children. Which do you think he’ll start on first? The oldest or the youngest?”

“Carol, honey. Please.”

“I’m a hysterical woman? You are so damn right. I am a hysterical woman.”

“We haven’t any proof it was Cady.”

She threw a towel into the sink. “Listen to me. I have proof it was Cady. I’ve got that proof. It’s not the kind of proof you would like. No evidence. No testimony. Nothing legalistic. I just know. What kind of a man are you? This is your family. Marilyn was part of your family. Are you going to look up all the precedents and prepare a brief?”

“You don’t know how—”

“I don’t know anything. This is happening because of something you did a long time ago.”

“Something I had to do.”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t have. You tell me the man hates you. You don’t think he’s sane. So do something about him!”

She had taken a step closer to him, glaring at him quite fiercely. And then her face crumpled and she was in his arms again, shivering this time. He held her and then he took her over to the bench by the trestle table and sat beside her, holding her hand.

She tried to smile and said, “I despise sniveling women.”

“You have the best reason in the world to be upset, honey. I know how you feel. And I know you’ve got cause for complaint. I provide food, clothing and shelter. Very civilized. It would be a hell of a lot easier to handle Cady during more primitive times, or in a more primitive part of the world. I am a member of a social complex. He is the outsider. I would rally my gang and we would kill him. I would very much like to kill him. I might even be able to manage it. You are reacting on a primitive level. That is actually what your instinct tells you I should do. But your logic will tell you how impossible that is. I would be sent to prison.”

“I... I know.”

“You want me to be effectual and decisive. That is precisely what I want to be. I don’t think I can frighten him away. I can’t kill him. The police are being less help than I thought they would be. There are two things I can think of. I can see Captain Dutton on Monday and see if he’ll cooperate the way Charlie promised he would. And if that doesn’t seem to work out, then we’ll move out of his range.”

“How?”

“School will be over next week.”

“Wednesday is the last day.”

“You can take off with the kids and find a place to stay and phone me at the office when you get located.”

“But you shouldn’t...”

“We can close the house and I’ll take a hotel room in town. I’ll be careful. This thing can’t last forever.”

“But between now and then...”

“I’m not certain of anything. But I can make a guess about how his mind works. He isn’t going to rush. He’s going to give us some time to think this over.”

“Can we be more careful anyway?”

“I’ll use the MG next week. You can drive the kids in in the wagon and pick them up after school. And I’ll give orders they’re to stay on the place. And tomorrow you get some target practice with the Woodsman.”

She linked her fingers in his. “I’m sorry I blew up. I shouldn’t have. I know you’ll do everything you can, Sam.”

“I’ve got to dig a grave for Marilyn. Doc Lowney is going to leave her off here. Where do you think?”

“How about that slope behind the barn near the aspens? That’s where they buried the bird that time.”

“I’ll go change.”

He put on faded, paint-spattered dungarees and his old blue shirt. He sensed that Carol was right. Instinct had told her Cady had poisoned the dog. He found it curious he should be willing to accept that with so little proof. It was contrary to his training, to all his instincts.

He looked in on Jamie in his room. The plastic radio, its red case mended with tar tape, was turned on. Jamie sat on the bed leafing through one of his dog-eared gun catalogues. He looked up at his father and said, “It was really poison, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.”

“And that man that hates us did it?”

“We don’t know who did it, son.”

The young eyes were pale and blue and hard. He held the catalogue out. “You see that thing? It’s a blunderbuss. With a brass barrel. Mike and me are going to get some f.f.g. powder and get this blunderbuss and I’m going to put a double load in it and I’m going to fill it all the way up with thirty old rusty nails and stuff and I’m going to hit that old Cady right in the gut. Pow!” Tears stood in his eyes.

“Mike knows about it?”

“I called him up while you were gone. He cried too but he was pretending he wasn’t. He wanted to come over but I told him I didn’t want to.”

“Want to help me pick a spot for the grave?”

“Okay.”

They got a spade from the barn. A cairn of pebbles held upright the tiny cross that marked the grave of Elvis, the deceased parakeet. Elvis had had the freedom of the house and was up to two words when Bucky, four years old then, had stepped on him. Bucky’s feeling of guilt and horror had lasted for so long they had begun to worry about him.

Sam got the hole well started and then let Jamie take his turn. The boy worked with dogged violence, grim-faced. As Sam stood watching, Nancy came up to him, walking slowly.

“This is a good place,” she said. “Did you bring her back?”

“Doc Lowney is going to bring her.”

“I saw you from my window. Damn it all, anyway.”

“Easy, girl.”

“Mother thinks that man did it.”

“I know she does. But there’s no proof.”

Jamie stopped digging. “I could dig a bigger hole. I could dig a hole for him and drop him down in it with snakes and things, and fill it with rocks and stomp it all down on him.”

Sam could see the boy was winded. “I’ll take a turn now. Let’s have the shovel.”

They stood and watched him finish it. Lowney arrived. He had the dog wrapped in a tattered old khaki blanket. Sam lifted her out of the car and carried her to the hole. She was extremely heavy. He covered her quickly and shaped the mound with the shovel. Dr. Lowney refused the offer of a drink and drove on back to town.

Dinner was a cheerless affair. During dinner Sam outlined the new rules. He had half expected objections. But the kids accepted them without comment.

After the children were all in bed, Sam and Carol sat in the living room.

“It’s so hard on them,” Carol said. “Bucky most of all. He was two when we got her, and she was sort of his dog.”

“I’ll do a little slave-driving tomorrow. Make them all work on the boat. It’ll take their minds off it.”

“And some target practice?”

“You sound eager. You were pretty reluctant the last time.”

“Because there didn’t seem to be much point in it.”

They read for a while. He got up restlessly and looked out at the night. There was a distant grumble of June thunder. It sounded as though it came from the north, out over the lake. Marilyn had always had a standard reaction to thunder. The head would go up and tilt. Then the ears would go back. She would stand up and give a vastly artificial yawn, lick her chops, eye them in a side-long way and saunter in the general direction of the couch. With one more apologetic glance she would crawl under the couch. Once when a loud clap of thunder had come without previous warnings from the distance, she had shot across the room and miscalculated the clearance and banged her forehead mightily on the bottom edge. She had rebounded, staggered, recovered, and scrambled under, and everybody had laughed except Bucky.

“It was like a charmed circle,” Carol said.

He turned and looked at her. “I think I know what you mean.”

“The untouchables. And now something has come in out of the darkness and struck one of us down. The charm isn’t working any more.”

“The business of living is a very precarious occupation.”

“Don’t be philosophical with me. Let me have my ridiculous little superstitions. We had a nice little fool’s paradise.”

“And will have again.”

“It won’t be the same.”

“You’ve had a grim day.”

She stood up and stretched. “And I’m going to put an end to it right now. This was a real whistler of a day. A doozy.” The thunder sounded again, closer. “Let’s lock up the joint,” she said.

“I’ll do it. You run along. I’ll be right up.”

After she had gone up he stood in the back of the house and watched the northwest sky. There were pink flashes below the horizon line. It would have been easier for all of them, he thought, if Marilyn had been a valiant, brave and noble animal. But she had been such a hapless creature, full of alarms and forebodings, yelping at the mere threat of pain, constantly in a state of apology. It was as though all her fears had come true, as though she had always known of the special agony awaiting her.